Hope is Strange
by Alicitzen
Summary: Mahiru Koizumi was going to die. She knew this for a fact. The baseball bat coming at her gave a distinct impression of incoming death. Then things got strange. LiS AU where Mahiru is accidentally made into the protagonist.
1. A prologue of memories

During the moment of her death, Mahiru Koizumi had a lot more that a baseball bat and regret for how things had played out going through her head.

Flashes of recent events started replaying backwards in her mind as if her mind was rewinding itself, memories of her discussion with Fuyuhiko, slowly she saw as they argued over his revenge plotting before she felt herself exiting the beach-house in reverse.

Then things started skiping a bit faster.

She caught glimpses of the last few hours; reading the invitation she now knew had been forged to lure her to her death, her meetings with Hiyoko and the others who had appeared in the game that stuffed bear had set as a motive, a motive that she now assumed was there for the sole purpose of killing her after all it seemed like there was no other way this tale could end. And just like that it now is replaying in her mind, taunting her with the story that led to this disaster.

She saw herself re-reading the note she had gotten telling her to play the game, her panicked viewing of the photos contained within. The pain in her head grew in regret for what she had allowed to happen, even if it was in the forgotten past.

The rewinding continued more showing her asking of Hajime to feed Nagito, before showing her last meeting with the deranged boy that helped convince her to play the game. She watched her and Hiyokos building friendship as they bonded over tying Hiyokos kimono, and the silent night of darkness she felt after the first trial due to being unable to sleep. Then the moment she dreaded arrived. She felt herself reversing back into the mountain that held the courtroom where Teruteru was executed for murdering Byakuya.

Thankfully the mental rewinding seemingly chose to be kind to Mahiru and it seemed to skip over the trail much quicker than it had other events, although seeing Teruteru basically come back to life was incredibly jarring. She watched as she used her photos of the party to find everyone's locations during the blackout, and then relived her shock and sadness at finding Byakuya dead under the table. Then things sped up, only brief glimpses of memory were distinguishable blurring so quickly Mahirus head pain began intensifying.

Then her memories stopped rewinding.

Mahiru found herself standing on a beach with 15 other teenagers and a white rabbit.

And then she blacked out.

* * *

 **Authors Note:**

 **So I came up with a base concept for a story based around everyone's favorite photographer and decided to write up a prologue.**  
 **And here we are! Feedback is much appreciated. The future of this story is still vague so suggestions are also welcome.**

 **Also in case it wasn't clear this is a Life is Strange AU**

 **Starting rewriting this now, so updates will come back.**


	2. A restart of introduction

Mahiru dreamt of her mother and her smiling face in the forest near their home and the photographs they had taken together, her most treasured photos. She had more photos of her mom than of her dad, a sad consequence of their somewhat shaky relationship.

The gentle tranquillity of the forest was soon halted by the flames consuming the world around her filling her vision with bright flames. She could hear the horrible sounds of the world burning around her and of her mother screaming, a sound she had never heard till this point in time, but sounded realer than she thought she could ever have imagined.

"Hey... "

A calm and familiar voice cut through the flames, so clear despite the raging inferno and her mother's echoing screams.

* * *

"Can you hear me?"

The familiar voice woke her from her dreams. Mahiru slowly opened her eyes letting them adjust to the tropical sunlight and saw a still blurred face looking down at her. She was lying down, she could feel her back on sand _Jeez that's gonna be a pain to shake off_. Her head still felt painful, but it had died down for the most part now it was more of a soft buzz.

"Are you okay?"

She reacted almost instinctively upon seeing the face of the boy looking down at her prone body and her fist met his face and he fell to the ground next to her in a ball of pain. Instantly she jumped up panicking at her sudden actions.

"Oh my god that was instinctive I am so sorry." She quickly apologised and tried to help him up. Violence was something she tried to avoid at all costs and although Nagito had proven to be incredibly insane and helped lead her to her death she hadn't intended to punch him like that.

Many things were running through her mind in that moment; why was she sleeping on the beach? Why was Nagito untied and the only one near her? What happened with Fuyuhiko and Peko? And most importantly, how was she still alive? As she wondered these things Nagito had finally righted himself.

"I suppose I should have expected a reaction like that." He let out a small chuckle, "It's not that often a girl wakes up with a strange guy she's never met before leaning over her".

 _Wait what? Never met? What the heck is going on?_

"I guess it would be best to introduce myself so I'm no longer a stranger then. I'm Nagito Komaeda, the Ultimate Lucky Student, sounds pretty disappointing right? What kind of talent is luck anyways? I even tried to deny Hopes Peaks acceptance of me into the school but apparently they wanted to study my luck, they said it was its own mysterious way of bringing Hope and I just couldn't let that go."

 _Why is he introducing himself to me if we already met a few days ago?_

"Uh what are you doing here?" She finally vocalised her first question.

"Oh right! I was left here on the beach to help you out when you woke up. Once that weird rabbit left everyone else decided to explore the island. One of the other students looked about ready to faint, then as soon as you did he perked straight up and tried helping you out. He seemed like he wanted to wait here instead of me, but I told him he was better of exploring to figure out what his talent was quicker. Another shorter boy tried to volunteer too, but I don't think he had your best intentions in mind if I heard him right."

Mahiru could only stare in shock. She assumed the person he was referring to was Hajime but why would he listen to Nagito like that? From what she had seen Hajime trusted him even less she did due to the way the luckster had betrayed his trust. Was it some elaborate trick to get her to murder him? Or was there something else happening to her?

"So then, now I've filled you in, do you feel up to giving an introduction?"

This was just getting more unsettling by the moment, first she was about to die and now she was on the beach where they started their island life with Nagito acting like it was the first day here and had never met her. She made the decision to play along with his story since it seemed like the best way to learn what happened to her.

"My name is Mahiru Koizumi..."

"Well then nice to meet you Mahiru. Although I said mine, so you should say yours. So, what is your Ultimate talent? Or are you another case of amnesia amongst us?"

Did he really not know? He was certainly acting the role pretty well. She needed to be more watchful of his reactions to her answers.

"Uh I'm the Ultimate Photographer."

He didn't seem very surprised to learn this fact. It raised Mahirus suspicions regarding his motives here, surely that warranted some kind of interest from the teen, yet he seemed completely nonplussed at this, a good first crack in the lie he was-

"I sort of figured that out because of the camera wrapped around your neck. But I didn't want to assume."

 _Oh. Never mind._

"It's probably a good idea to go and introduce you to all the other students on the island now. It will probably help you gather up those hope shards the weird rabbit mentioned, and since I haven't left here yet either give us both a good idea of the layout of the island." With that Nagito got up and started leading her off the beach towards the main road of the island. As he started walking down the road towards where she knew would be the airport she decided to finally check something, and started feeling her head for any wounds. She found no such wounds and only proceeded to mess up her hair a little leaving it with a hair antenna not that different from the one Hajime had, and like his it wouldn't stay down when she tried flattening it.

 _Why is there no wound? If it's not there then what is causing this headache? Plus, how did I end up asleep on that beach in particular? Was I carried there by Nagito? No that's impossible, he was still tied up when I went to the beach-house and I have enough faith in the others to not let him loose, though maybe that rabbit is at fault. Maybe my camera accidentally took a photograph that can help me work this out._

Quickly Mahiru checked over her camera to see if her photo album had changed, yet it still seemed to hold all the photos she took since arriving on the island, from the arrival on the beach to the party in the old building. Then she noticed the date her camera listed today as.

It was set at the day they arrived. Which was impossible, the internal clock was always accurate she made sure of that when she started using it, plus how could it be saying she was in the past whilst having photographs from days after that? It was flat out unthinkable, yet here it was and if there was one thing Mahiru could place her trust in, it was her camera.

So, what did that mean? Had she and her photos travelled through time to when the field-trip began? If Nagitos reactions had been genuine that would be the most reasonable assumption despite being as unreasonably impossible as it was. If only she had a way to be sure if that was the case.

It was at this moment Nagito chose to stop in front of the airport. Yet the oblivious Mahiru failed to notice his sudden halting and walked right into him, the impact and shock of which caused her to accidentally drop her camera to the ground.

It let out a loud shattering noise and fell apart on impact, Mahiru could only look on in shock and despair reaching out in futile attempt to save it.

And then that sensation returned, her head pain grew, and the world seemed to slow.

Time moved backwards, and the camera flew towards her and repaired itself mid-air as it returned to her hands.

 _Oh. So that's what happened._


	3. A beginning of a tour

The airport was just as empty as she remembered, with the endlessly running conveyor belt being the only sign that it was close to functioning properly and the graveyard of broken planes reminding her of how trapped she was. Now that she was actually thinking about it, the airport was probably the worst part of the first island due to how it seemingly only existed to remind her of the isolation from the rest of the world this field trip had created.

Of course, at the current point in time nobody else on the island seemed in any way as depressed or contemplative at this thought as her.

This was easily seen in the fact that one of the most unreliable and panic prone members of the group was currently chuckling at how strange it was that Usami had removed the engines. Nagitos somewhat forced re-introduction to Kazuichi Soda was made incredibly awkward due to both this memory based discrepancy and the overly enthusiastic lucky student trying to make them talk more.

What little conversation did arise from it mostly left Mahiru disappointed at how cowardly the mechanic could be. _It's as if he is always expecting certain doom to end his life. How can a guy like him even function?_

The third re-introduction Mahiru faced was somewhat less awkward. If only because it was an incredibly one-sided conversation on behalf of Gundam Tanaka. Who seemed to have gotten into his head that the cause of Mahirus fainting was in fact due to her shock and terror of being stuck on an island with the single most evil overlord ever. How much fear she had felt had apparently caused her to lose control of her body and fall unconscious. Where she had dreams about the torture he would force unto her. That's about as far as Mahiru heard before spacing out, even Nagito seemed unsure what to do.

Though he quickly stopped ranting once she called his hamsters cute.

Nagito proceeded to then quickly drag her away from the blushing animal enthusiast intent on "fostering more bonds of hope" as he was so adamant on calling it. _It's just introductions, no need to glorify them so much._

She had to give the luckster some credit though, he was incredibly good at dragging her over to her next introduction. _Wait how does he even know where he's going? I'm the one that's explored the island before the rewind stuff started, and he was supposedly with me since I fainted. This guy makes so little sense._

"Good thing this road doesn't actually split anywhere, so we just need to follow it in a straight line~" The luckster blurted out as if he was reading her thoughts.

 _Oh. Never mind._

They soon arrived at their next destination on the re-introduction tour, Rocketpunch Market the incredibly large store with far too wide a variety of items for sale than should be reasonably allowed, seriously why did a supermarket sell night vision goggles? It was also the location at which a certain someone had most likely found a baseball bat. _Perhaps I should hide the baseball bats later, that may make my coming death a bit less ironic at least. Heck maybe they might just give up altogether if they can't find a bat._

The behaviour of the two girls Nagito tried to introduce her to in the supermarket could be considered as opposite as black and white.

The first was the very timid nurse Mikan Tsumiki whose unfortunate habit of getting into embarrassing accidents had probably helped save everyone's lives. It was truly a shameful existence she lived out in her daily life. Though when she did speak she at least attempted to make sure the fainting hadn't caused any health issues showing the nurse title had some merit to it. The poor girl could really do with some morale boosting before she ends up snapping.

The second was the enigma of energy known as Ibuki Mioda. Yeah. She was definitely something else. Mahiru would have suspected the empty bottles of cola that lay on the floor nearby may have had something to do with the energy, but she had spent a high amount of time with Ibuki before the time rewinding started, and she hardly changed. Also, Usami didn't seem to care about the littering? _Yeah no I'm not questioning it._

Perhaps it was a good thing she had been brought to the supermarket when she was, since in the end it did help her escape Nagitos hope building tour. So maybe it was a smart idea to mention how bland his introductions had been so far to the musician. Sure, the guy may like her a little less, but he was kinda insane to begin with, so it's not like it meant much to her.

Though given that she was now stuck being given the " **Mioda Star tour of Awesomeness and Adventure** " perhaps it really would have been wise to rewind time and avoid this fate, but then again it was less time spent with Nagito and it may allow her to rush through the coming re-introductions, so she didn't need to deal with the redundancy of this sequence of events even more.

"Let us set off and Koi-zoom our way to our next destination!"

Okay maybe this was worse.

 _Why can nobody on this island be a normal school student? And I hardly even count as normal any more now that I can apparently rewind time._

There was one thing this tour quickly taught Mahiru, and that was that Ibuki had way more talent at dragging unwilling people to a destination that Nagito. Again, this raised the question of whether or not this was a good thing for the poor photographer whose shoes were probably eroding away quickly due to the friction the dragging caused.

 _Knowing her it won't be a surprise if the friction sets my shoes on fire somehow.._.

Somehow, they ended up at their next stop on the tour without any major injuries aside from a wounded ego and slightly sore arm from Ibukis vice like grip. _Is she really a musician and not an athlete? She doesn't seem out of breath or anything._

The hotel was an interesting place, the fact that it had 16 rooms and seemed custom designed for each of the students really raised some questions as to the nature of the island, then there was the weird name for the hotel "Mirai" why would they name a hotel Future? It was a really odd choice, that hardly fit with the island they were on. Plus, it seemed to be the only place she had seen so far in which people could reasonably sleep, so where did all the islands original inhabitants sleep before they all vanished?

Mahirus thought process was interrupted as she walked near the pool by her very impatient tour guide, who felt the need to introduce her to yet another pair of her fellow classmates.

"Hey Mahiru, meet the uber short and cool gangster Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu and the sword swinging ninja of justice Peko Pekoyama!"

* * *

 **Authors notes:**

 **Yes, that's my cliff-hanger and I am sticking to it.**

 **This update and the next few have the issue of covering a high amount of material most people know but is necessary to include, which is very difficult to write about from another point of view. So, a lot of talking is getting skipped here to save everyone from redundancy.**

 **In regard to a question about shipping, who knows? Life is Strange has player choices affecting the story doesn't it? So, reader input may change how certain decisions are made.**

 **We already have our odd hair coloured punk saving our protagonist from a slightly unhinged guy so there's that.**


	4. An origin of lies

Fun trivia for you.

There is no situation more awkward than standing face to face with the girl who less than two hours ago brained you dead with a homerun level strike, and the boy who basically caused it, even if he seemed against it at the time.

Add in them not knowing that you know that they don't know what you know which led to them killing you.

Yeah, its not a good situation in Mahirus mind at this point.

So, let's just view this from the outside.

"Don't fucking call me short you bitch!" "I'm _not_ a ninja of justice."

The two newly re-introduced students managed to speak over each other in a perfectly timed rebuttal to Ibukis questionable introduction, and all she could do in reaction to the raised voices and the gangster flipping her off, was laugh in excitement.

"Wooohooo you are so macho Kazoozoo! Look Koizoozoo is in stunned silence at your awesomeness!"

* * *

Meanwhile in Mahirus head:

 _ **AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**_

* * *

Yeah, we should let her cool down a bit more.

"Do you want me to kill you? Stop giving me nicknames!" The yakuza heir was in no way pleased with this scenario, first he was interrupted mid-conversation with Peko by probably the most annoying presence on the island, but now she was mocking him in front of a dumbfounded girl who just seemed incapable of looking away from him unblinkingly. It was creepy. Looking quickly at Peko confirmed she too seemed uncomfortable at the musicians obnoxious prodding he vowed to get this over and done with quickly.

"Now just hurry up and introduce this gawking idiot so I can be free of you."

"Gah! Fuyuhiko you wound me!" _Good_ "This is my bestest friend and current touree Mahiru Koizumi! She seems a little out of it right now though, probably in awe of my amazing guide skills~" _Yeah no that's not true in any world._

"Hello Mahiru, I am Peko Pekoyama, the Ultimate Swordswoman, it is good to meet you" Peko outstretched her hand to the girl who only reacted with a flinch. Almost as if she could tell what kind of work his family had had her do.

It took her a few seconds, but the redheaded girl slowly met the outstretched hand with her own and shook it lightly in greeting before turning and giving a small nod to Fuyuhiko.

 _Interesting this girl may be smarter than she lets on._

* * *

 _Oh god please just leave_

Forcing the mental panic to the side in order to avoid suspicion, she decided to not leave her introduction only to Ibuki, who was bound to alter the truth to fit her weird narrative.

"As Ibuki said my name is Mahiru Koizumi, the Ultimate Crime Scene Photographer."

 _There we go now we can move on and let me calm down elsewhere._

The yakuza raised an eyebrow "Oh? So, I suppose I ain't the only one used to corpses." He then nodded and walked off towards the exit, with Peko following soon after.

 _Huh? What did he mean by that?_ She scratched her head at the cryptic comment before looking to Ibuki for clarification. The musician though seemed to be staring wide eyed at her with an open mouth.

"Ooooooh Mahiru how come you never told me that you worked at crime scenes~ That's so awesome!"

 _Wait what._

She replayed the conversation back in her mind, noticing too late the strange slip of the tongue she had made.

 _Oh, jeez that's going to make me seem weirder than I already am._

With a nervous chuckle she tried shrugging off Ibukis inquiring, "Hey, what ever happened to that tour?"

The inhale of breath in the punk girls' gasp could've been considered on par with a vacuum cleaner, with a movement as instant as a blink she had regripped Mahirus arm and started dragging her over towards the Mirai building where the restaurant was housed.

Entering the lobby began a reintroduction to another two students, Chiaki Nanami and Nekomaru Nidai. It seemed the Manager was prompting her about her near complete lack of physical strength from years of gaming.

Chiaki had been quite dependable during the night the had been forced to solve Byakuya's murder being one of the key investigators alongside Hajime, though her sleepiness and tendency to space out somewhat made her a liability otherwise.

The massive figure of Nekomaru was a lot more imposing than the frail gamer girl. The boy was in a strange status placement in Mahirus mind, sure he seemed to be similar to her in expecting better of everyone on the island, his complete lack of restraint from the vulgar comments really tanked her impression of him. Poor Peko having to deal with him shouting about her toilet issues.

The two didn't seem to have anything especially notable to bring up, though Chiaki did express concern for her wellbeing before forcing a promise to play a co-op game later. _"It's a date"_ She had said in a half-asleep voice as Nekomaru wandered out of the building.

Heading up the stairs to the restaurant with her loud guide Mahiru set her eyes on the next two students to meet again.

First of note was Sonia, the dignified royalty from Novoselic. She was probably one of the three people on the island Mahiru had the most respect for, sure she may have some weird moments, but the princess had been for the most part well composed and had great mediation skills. Though her allowing Byakuya to just assume leadership was a little more passive than Mahiru would have liked, Sonia had otherwise been a shining example of a student, somehow being one of the more normal of her classmates despite being royalty.

"So could you suck the poison out?"

The second person was. Well. How can it be described?

Upon hearing the voice of the Ultimate Cook, Mahirus body moved in an instant over to the two and with a sweeping swing of her leg kicked the unaware boy right across the room where he proceeded to smash through a table and some chairs before collapsing to the ground.

 _Huh?_

The two other girls in the room stared at her with their jaws hanging low. The room was silent other than the cooks groaning in pain. _Maybe this is something I should fix up._ The headache returned in full force as Teruteru flew out of the repairing furniture, before landing back on his feet next to her.

Then time resumed. "Ack" She grunted in pain, moving a hand to rub her head a bit. Her comment made the two students jump in surprise at her sudden appearance as they finally noticed the girl who had seemingly teleported next to them, with a musician trailing slightly behind her.

Both pairs of eyes lit up, though Mahiru could already tell it was for two different reasons. She hoped the daggers she was staring at the boy would keep him silent, so she could no longer be near his inexcusable self.

Teruteru was right next to Nagito in Mahirus "Do not go near list" for multiple of reasons, with him murdering Byakuya being only a minor one on there. The boy represented all the things in men Mahiru could not in any world tolerate, he was selfish, was pushed around easily under pressure and most importantly, he was probably the largest sexual deviant in Japan. If what she heard as she arrived in the room was right, he was attempting to take advantage of Sonia's naivete.

So yeah hopefully the daggers would prove to be efficient in holding him off.

Ibuki began going through the whole re-introduction again, now spouting more egregious details like Mahirus "Camera Flashstep" technique she had apparently developed in order to take better selfies. _Does Ibuki live in some other world?_

Sonia's eyes seemed to be in a permanent sparkle as Ibukis embellishments grew, "So Mahiru, have you ever been to a Genocider Syo crime scene?" _Is this really the girl I had respect for?_ She shook her head in denial but all that seemed to achieve was spur the lie on more, something about _"gotta keep it top secret eh?"_ at this point the lies had grown to a point that taking them down would be more effort than it was worth.

 _At least now I have an excuse for when I use that rewind ability and act quickly…_

Everything seemed to be moving smoothly and the freedom to return to island exploring, but then he just had to speak up with a comment she couldn't just brush over.

"Such a shame that white haired boy wouldn't let me look after you on the beach" He said with a wink. "I'd have taken great care of you."

She felt an extreme pain in her left leg, and a second later Teruteru vanished, a loud splash echoed from the pool outside.

Both the girls beside her had eyes sparkling in excitement. _Déjà vu._

"Wow Mahiru you are the true guardian of women everywhere~" Ibuki cheered out. "You kicked him right in the you know what! Did you see how he even ricocheted off the floor and roof as he flew?"

 _Wait really?_

"Oh my! What a powerful kick!" The princess chimed in "You would be a great member of the Novoselic baseball league!"

 _What does kicking have to do with baseball?_

At this point though, despite her apprehension towards violence the idea of undoing her act against Teruteru was nowhere in the photographers' mind, after all it would hopefully teach the boy a lesson he could learn from.

Leaving Sonia behind and carrying on the tour with Ibuki, the two walked down the outer steps to the restaurant and headed over past the pool, where they spotted Nekomaru carrying some towels over for the soaked cook, upon seeing them he gave a respectful nod towards Mahiru and carried on trying to dry the seemingly passed out self-proclaimed chef.

Finally leaving the hotel area after what felt like a lifetime, the low-quality tour group moved on to their next destination, the ranch. Probably the most understandable of the areas on the island, yet paradoxically one of the least understandable, if this island was to sustain life, how come the farm only has a single cow? Surely not everyone here had been entirely reliant on the supermarket, right?

The two girls met up with another pair of girls here, the Gymnast Akane Owari, and the Dancer Hiyoko Saionji who was presently squashing ants.

Akane was probably one of the girls Mahiru had the most fault with, the gymnast had no sense of self control and always seemed ready to jump into any form of action without a second thought. Added to the fact she was a glutton of a level only beaten by the expert Byakuya really put her in the "Not very reliable" camp.

The second of the girls Hiyoko, had been Mahirus closest friend before the strange world reset stuff had happened, though for a strange amount of reasons. Notably because whilst she considered her a friend, it was difficult to get along with Hiyoko and her bullying nature, she had mostly spent time bonding with the blond girl in an attempt to create some kind of leash that could reign her in from her more meanspirited moments. Though looking back at it, she supposed she had failed in that regards, maybe if things had carried on after the beachhouse events, the small girl would have had an epiphany and grown into a kinder girl.

But that was a world away now.

And looking at it now, trying to stop one girl from being a bully kind of seemed insignificant in the bigger picture. Perhaps this time around she could try changing some other things to make the group better people? She wasn't sure.

But eventually the tour must go on and the pair headed off to the central island and headed to meet the final two students. As they crossed the massive bridge and Ibuki pointed out all the cool waves she saw, Mahiru finally came to a resolution she had been putting off for some time since she realized what she could achieve.

 _I'm going to end this dumb killing game. Before it even starts._


End file.
